Troops See Euphrates, and a Battle

ALBU AZIZ, Iraq —  The American tank gunner fired his turret-mounted machine gun at the Iraqi mortar position, killing one Republican Guard soldier while another dived into a ditch filled with water.

It was Sgt. Bryan Sage’s first kill of the war. The dead soldier lay in a bean field beside his mortar tube. His body was still smoldering as GIs slowly picked through cases of AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

“I don’t want to say I’m too excited about it, but I’m not heartbroken,” said Sage, 23. “I feel a lot less than I thought I’d feel. It was a lot less personal. I was here and he was all the way over there.”

The tank gunner was part of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division that swept into this tiny village on the west bank of the Euphrates early Monday morning. By the time the fighting stopped, 46 Iraqi soldiers were dead.

It was the first major action since the infantry and tank elements of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment crossed the border from Kuwait and pushed into central Iraq in a 48-hour march. Since then, they had been waiting near the city of Najaf, stalled by weather and harassed by paramilitary forces targeting supply lines.

At the beginning of the battle, the American column encountered small-arms fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades from Iraqi forces as it entered this town, 20 miles south of Karbala, on a road that leads east to the ruins of Babylon.

Pro-Saddam Hussein and Baath Party flags flew from several buildings. Numerous sandbagged positions indicated loyalists were preparing a defense, but the 2nd Brigade’s M1-A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles had little trouble hitting their targets, while suffering only one minor casualty.

About two dozen combatants, most of them in civilian clothing, surrendered. Among them was the soldier who dived into a ditch when Sage opened fire. The Iraqi soldier lay so still that American troops passed by several times, assuming he was dead. After they pulled him from the ditch, he sat on a tank, asking in English for cigarettes and water. He was so frightened he wet his pants.

Prisoners were bound and seated on the fronts of tanks and then escorted to the rear of the column. One had a bandage over his head, another was barefoot and a third wore nothing but a pair of black underwear. Some of the men were in sleeping bags when found. Boots, uniforms, even gas masks were scattered around the area. The men may have been hurriedly trying to change into civilian clothes.

Amid the fighting, residents waved white flags. Several eagerly pointed out enemy positions to the U.S. troops, who destroyed some caches of weapons and confiscated others. The haul included about 80 mortars, 90 rocket grenade launchers, scores of vehicles and six sophisticated Russian-made night-vision sighting scopes for mortars.

“They had Russian stuff, they had French stuff, they had Belgian stuff, and guess who’s been the most vocal against this war?” said an angry Lt. David Chen, executive officer of Cyclone Company of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment.

A similar cache was taken from a police station, where soldiers also found maps showing U.S. troop positions. One of the prisoners was from the Nebuchadnezzar Division of the Republican Guard, based north of Baghdad, and his presence led to speculation that Hussein was shifting foot soldiers south to stall the U.S. advance.

The American column went as far as a bridge across the Euphrates, but it did not cross the river, though prisoners reported as many as 1,000 Iraqi troops on the other side. Capt. Steven Barry, commander of Cyclone Company, said the column pulled back because it did not encounter Republican Guard tank units, the opposition the Americans hoped to draw out.

Prisoners also said the troops were prepared to use civilians as shields in the event of battle, according to combat planners here. Initial reports, which could not be confirmed, also indicated that the span might be wired with explosives.

Stores were shuttered, and the town’s central market was empty, but as the fighting waned, civilians wandered through the column. One man herded bulls down a side alley. Some families peered over the rooftop ledges of their buildings, and at least one child ran and played on the main street, a dirt lane lined with small, crude-brick houses.

Radio dispatches during the fighting portrayed a nerve-racking battle marked by attempts to avoid killing civilians, even as combatants emerged in civilian clothing. One tank commander pointed out a family peeking over a ledge. “Hopefully, they’re looking for themselves, not scouting for the enemy,” he said.